All programming teams are constructed by and of crazy people

Probably one of the funniest articles I’ve read on programming all year.

Every friend I have with a job that involves picking up something heavier than a laptop more than twice a week eventually finds a way to slip something like this into conversation: “Bro, you don’t work hard. I just worked a 4700-hour week digging a tunnel under Mordor with a screwdriver.”

They have a point. Mordor sucks, and it’s certainly more physically taxing to dig a tunnel than poke at a keyboard unless you’re an ant. But, for the sake of the argument, can we agree that stress and insanity are bad things? Awesome. Welcome to programming.

from Programming Sucks

(via Khürt, Thanks, man!)

Update: whoops forgot the dang link!

All programming teams are constructed by and of crazy people

The Internet is a freedom machine. Make it work for everyone.

The other day I listened to “Wishful Thinking” the latest “dislike club” episode of Benjamen Walker’s Theory of Everything podcast. This series of episodes focuses on the current, sad, state of the Internet. How it’s turned from an amazing place where ideas, thoughts, and emotions are freely exchanged into a virtual gulag. A place where we slave away trading our personal information, endlessly liking things, to generate profits for big companies.

This last episode focuses on online harassment and it’s quite powerful. The Internet is probably one of the last places you can make someone’s life absolutely miserable and suffer zero consequences. Not surprisingly most of the victims here are women and it can get so bad that they must leave the Internet, dis-engage from public life, because of it. If the behavior most women face online happened in the workplace people lose their jobs and get prosecuted. When it happens online, nothing happens to the individual or group responsible. This kind of behavior has to stop.

Coincidentally, this week the people over at the Tor Project posted  Solidarity Against Online Harassment. Read it. Sign your name, but more importantly, act. Fight this crap everyday. Defend those being harassed, condemn this behavior, and cast a critical eye at your own behavior.

The Internet is probably the greatest freedom machine ever built. My freedom has to stop where it might infringe on your freedom and your ability to express your ideas.

The Internet is a freedom machine. Make it work for everyone.

Above Avalon a valuable signal for Apple watchers

I do a lot of apple watching and over time I’ve whittled down the number of places I go for such information. Recently Neil Cybart (a former stock analyst) launched Above Avalon a throwback email newsletter that covers Apple from a finance angle. I normally would have unsubscribed by now, who needs more email, but Cybart has me hooked. Just today he introduced me to a few new companies with apps in a growing space aimed at the financial consumers: Robinhood, Affirm, and Oscar. (Robinhood sounds particularly interesting to me.) Short and to the point, I look forward to reading Above Avalon every weekday. I recommend it to anyone interested in news related to Apple as a business.

Above Avalon a valuable signal for Apple watchers